- Alright Senior Russel, welcome to Teslanomics.
Glad to finally have you on, man.
- Yeah thanks for having me.
- Been a fan of your work.
If you guys are watching, don't know his channel,
Hyperchange TV, you do a lot of the same stuff I do
which I why I love it.
Because you look at data and you kinda more focus on
the finance side, usually.
But there's always charts and graphs
and you're doing the actual work
and helping us understand these things.
So I love that there's more folks in this same vein.
So, yeah, stoked to have you on.
Been a fan for a while.
And you just kinda had a special day yesterday,
it seems, right?
- Pretty unreal, yeah.
- So tell me what happened.
How did you get on the earnings call?
Then we can break into what were your takeaways from it?
And just kinda how are you feeling?
And all that, so give me the breakdown here.
How did you end up on the earnings call?
- Totally.
So a little back story.
I make videos on my channel about the Tesla earnings call,
rehabbing them every quarter.
And those are some of my most viewed videos.
And a couple subscribers had brought up,
like I joked about being on the conference call
tons of times,
sort of making fun of the analyst's questions,
and finally somebody commented and was like,
Gali, you should go on the call.
And so I submitted a proposal
and got it together for this quarter
and said hey email Ira Tesla
if you wanna see me on the call.
Let's give this a shot.
Really I even put in the video
I thought it had a 0% chance of working,
and I was blown away.
At the end of the day over 200 people emailed,
85,000 shares, tens of millions of dollars worth
of Tesla stock vouching for me.
And then I tweeted it out, sort of these numbers
and was like hey Elon, can we make this happen?
I wanna take input from the retail investors,
get on the call.
And then actually I went to the gym, got back from the gym
and first thing I do is check my email
from Tesla IR directly,
and they're like yeah everybody wants to be on the call,
we can't make it happen.
And then I see a tweet from Elon that says okay
and next thing I know I got on the call, yeah.
- Amazing.
You know that in my working with them,
that's kind of actually your best chance.
I'm sure people reach out wanting all these things,
and it's like look if you can get Elon's attention
and he actually responds to you on Twitter,
of course it's gonna happen.
But outside of that your chances of them approving you
unless you're CBS or somebody, chances are low.
Chances are low.
So you're on the call and what happens?
'Cause this was kind of a special circumstance, right?
- I mean I've never heard anything like this.
I listen to Tesla conference calls all the time
and basically what happened is
Elon started getting fed up with the line of questioning
from the analysts,
and that's sort of why I wanted to do the call
because I feel like the questions are boring
and not what long-term investors care about,
and so next thing I know, Elon is like alright,
these questions are boring, let's go to YouTube.
And then that's the quote that everyone's talking about
and I kinda freaked out,
'cause I'm on the call, I'm ready,
and then they announced my name
and luckily I wanna give a shout out to Rob
at the Tesla podcast and Fred from Electrak
and also Trent Eddy because I had been
hours and hours of phone calls with them
and notes back and forth,
getting emails from all the Tesla community
and so I just had a massive list of questions ready to go
and just started firing them off.
Elon seemed to like it
and said these questions aren't boring, let's keep it going.
So I sorta just ran with it
and tried to get everything that the Tesla community wanted
answered asked on the call.
- Yeah I actually just got done listening to it
and it was probably the most interesting
earnings call I've ever heard,
because typically, yeah you're right,
the questions are very specific, short kind of sighted,
how an analyst can optimize their return
on shorting or buying or whatever.
And it's one of those things where
I feel like all the questions you asked
were all things that I had been wondering about
so it was all very much,
I think the whole Tesla community,
forget the analysts that have their own view of the world,
the actual Tesla community greatly appreciates that.
And it sounded like Elon enjoyed it.
Now they were trying to cut you off at one point,
but Elon cut them off, right?
How did you feel at that moment?
'Cause I think the moderator came on and was like
okay, next question, and Elon kinda stepped in
and was like no, no no no, we're gonna keep going.
What did you think in that moment right then?
- Yeah I mean I just kinda wanted to not lose momentum.
And just keep coming with questions.
And I got the sense that Elon and the management team
seemed like this was a productive discussion
and they enjoyed having it.
And so I was like if I get out of hand, they'll cut me off.
You know what I mean?
It's not like they're just gonna keep let me going,
so if Elon thinks this is interesting
and I think this is adding value
and this is the questions that literally
probably a lot of your viewers too emailed in to ask,
let's just run with it and see how far it can go.
- So of all the answers that he gave,
including to the other analysts and stuff,
what were your main takeaways?
Anything that stood out that he said
that maybe was different or surprising or anything?
- The biggest thing that was surprising
was how strongly he worded
that they don't need to raise capital this year.
Because Elon in the past has said
that we don't need to raise capital
and then gone on to raise capital,
and I think was he's just insinuating
is that we don't need to raise money
but we wanna grow faster, so we will.
And so Adam Jonas I think is actually a very smart question
to say okay Elon, we know you said that in the past,
but would you consider raising money to accelerate growth?
And Elon almost got pissed, and was like no,
we're definitely not raising.
So now that puts the stakes fully in their court,
they can't make a capital raise.
Or I mean, going back on their word now would seem crazy
and so that's sorta my big takeaway
as a big thing that I like to look at these conference calls
more than the numbers, more than the questions,
is the philosophy and the thoughts
and the emotions of the CEOs
because he knows what's gonna happen in six months.
He understands the business better than ever
and I just get this sense
of confidence from him from that answer
that most of the problems that Tesla has are worked out
and he sees a clear path towards profitability
and that's why he's so confident.
And so my biggest takeaway is sort of like
I have renewed confidence in this story because of his
and there's some stuff with the numbers
that backs that up too,
but that was the biggest gist.
- Amazing, yeah.
And yeah I agree.
I think Adam Jonas is great.
I really enjoy his line of questioning
and every time I see him quoted,
one of the better ones for sure.
And so what about any of the questions related to
Model Y production or,
I thought it was kinda funny how
there was a report I think a lot of us talked about
for them starting Model Y production next year
and he just kinda flat out said no.
Any of those things, not necessarily around
the financials of the company,
but just around the production or charging or any of those,
any of those things stand out to you
as kinda shocking or surprising?
- Yeah so much news.
I mean the Model Y is interesting
'cause Reuters' super legitimate source,
I made a video trying to extrapolate
what they were meaning by that.
So I think it was awesome to get clarity from Elon
to know where their head's at,
saying no, Model Y isn't starting production for 24 months.
And we don't even know where we're gonna build it
so I don't know how Reuters knows.
So I thought that was awesome.
Got a little more clarity,
oh the biggest thing on the conference call
that I feel like no one is talking about
was when I asked about Tesla Energy
and how that success, the South Australia project
is sort of leading to an inflection point
in these bigger utility projects,
and he mentioned the next couple months
they could potentially announce a project
that's like a gigawatt hour.
Which is absurdly big.
Sort of sets an even new precedent
for world's biggest battery,
so I thought that got swept under the rug
and that was huge news.
Also one more tidbit about the platooning of the semi-truck
and how that is really gonna enable them
to be cost-competitive with rail.
I just think Tesla, they don't need to do any marketing
for the semi-truck, it's gonna sell itself
if it is that efficient,
and I don't know so I'm really stoked
on that product line after learning that.
- Yeah one of the thoughts I had
immediately after listening to it
was like you actually got Elon to laugh,
which is pretty cool
because you mentioned the Daimler CEO talking about physics
which got him going.
And that was related to whether or not
the trucks could actually achieve that range
with the battery technology.
And then I'm glad JB chimed in,
because JB really is the battery, EV guy right?
I mean if you go back to the founding of the company,
that was his big thing.
So yeah I thought that that was fascinating
that they were saying yeah we actually don't need
any breakthroughs at all.
But kind of like obviously we're always looking
to improve these things.
So yeah in a few years it's likely
that you'll see some improvements,
but don't necessarily need them.
Yeah I think, man, your contributions there
are well appreciated by so many,
I think I have like five videos I have to go make now,
talking about all the different things that he said,
you know?
- Yeah and one thing that's so interesting to me
is how the media is spinning this as Elon's off the rails,
like YouTuber advice, haha.
And then that same story by that same article
is also referencing all of this new stuff
we learned on the call
about Tesla shares new details on autonomy,
Tesla shares details on Model Y, on the semi.
So it's so ironic to me, where it's like literally
they're getting hits and clicks and articles
out of all of this news
that came from my line of questioning it,
and the retail investor community,
and yet giving us none of the credit,
still saying the conference call was a disaster
when in reality it was a massive success.
And I think it changes the paradigm
for having influencers and internet people
be able to have a voice,
if they really can have better quality questions.
- No man, I completely agree.
In fact there was a tweet from Tom Randall about it.
How he posted the exchange
where Elon cut the one analyst off
and then said we'll go to YouTube,
and how in After Hours Trading,
Tesla stock went down by 4% or something like that.
And he responded to my question, said he verified this,
that he's essentially saying
yes there is a direct causal relationship
between the stock going down
and Elon cutting this analyst off.
And to me, first off I love Elon for that.
Because he kinda says look, I don't care.
I don't give a shit what you guys think.
We're gonna talk about stuff that's interesting.
And then the second thing is like I'm thinking
either these analysts are just cry babies,
and that's why that happened,
or they're afraid for their jobs
because Elon can do whatever the hell he wants,
especially, you know.
So he doesn't have to take anyone's questions
if he doesn't want to,
and the ones he does want to take aren't theirs.
So I feel like this was such a great moment
and you have done something that for all of us,
will benefit in the influencer creator space.
Because yeah, typically these things are the most
boring, dry, lame,
like I usually just kinda read the tea leaves
or I'll actually read the kind of letter they give out
and if there's any news about what they said on the call.
A lot of times I don't listen to it,
'cause it's like, I don't know it's like watching paint dry.
This had to be the best one
and it's thanks to you and everyone that supported you, man.
So congrats.
I think it's like a turning point, almost.
- Yeah thank you so much.
And I mean even more so than Elon retweeting it and stuff,
the fact that I saw MKBHD,
who's someone that I look up to so much,
tweet about it and how it was
an awesome moment for creators,
I don't know it's just, it's unreal to me.
Because Elon and him are two people that are like my heroes,
so to see them get involved with Hyperchange
and be supportive, it's been amazing.
- He's not too far from me either,
I think he's over in New Jersey.
- Right?
- So pretty close by.
- You know, get a ride in his Tesla!
- Yeah, no doubt.
You should, what's it, Apollo, I think is its name.
Yeah and you know what you should do,
you should try to hit up Casey and go down to 368.
I don't know how far you are from that,
but I'm sure you could follow in that whole thing.
- I'm by it probably once a week, honestly.
- Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
That's so cool man.
Well hey, thanks for taking the time here.
Congratulations on this.
Thank you for this because yeah, like you were saying,
I think it opens up the doors
for a lot of us other creators.
And I hope you just remember us
when you got your own talk show or something like that.
- Yeah thanks so much for having me Ben.
Huge fan of Teslanomics, so keep up the great work.
- Will do man and enjoy the time here.
It's gonna be a fun little ride for a bit.
- Definitely.
- Alright, cool man.